Fire and Brimstone
by Sokorra Lewis
Summary: She never spoke of what happened that night in her father's lab.  Written for the Fanfic100 prompt table.  JohnnyFrankie friendship [Complete]


Title: Fire and Brimstone  
Prompt: 71. Broken  
Category: Fantastic Four  
Pairing: Johnny Storm/Frankie Raye  
Genre: Friendship/Drama/Tragedy  
Summery: She never speaks of what happened that night  
Word Count: 1726

Author Notes: This story was written with the plan of a sequel that was for prompt 72 Fixed. So there is a second part of this story coming that takes place after the second movie. However I also intended that both be able to read seperately, so you can tell me if I suceeded or not.

I decided that Johnny was most likely 26 or 27 and settled on the later age for RoTSS. A lot of this is based on what I could find on the internet about Frankie's character in the comic books. According to that she was about 16 when all this happened, and since I figure she's probably a few years older then Johnny, I'm making her 28 in RoTSS. Therefore in this Johnny's 14, Frankie's 16 and Sue is probably in her early 20s, possibly late teens.

* * *

_1994_

"Francis, please take your feet off the table." Frankie looked up at her mother over the magazine she was reading and took her feet off the coffee table, making sure her mother knew she was annoyed at the use of her real name. Elizabeth Holden just rolled her eyes in response. "Don't give me that look, young lady. It's your name, I like it and I will use it. Your father wants to know if you want to help in the lab today."

At that Frankie smiled and got up and went past her mother towards the door. She always liked working in her step-father's lab. Her mother followed her out of the house and down the path to the guest house turned laboratory that Phineas Holden used. Since their family was so small (there was only Beth, Finny, Frankie and the newest member of the family Nicholas), they had no use of it and when Frankie was ten, Finny decided to make it his laboratory away from work. Somewhere that he could work on his private projects.

Lately that project had been "The Human Torch", an android capable of withstanding high temperatures of flame. He had created it with the purpose of helping firefighters fight the fires in overly dangerous incidences. He wanted to help saves lives of not only the victims but of the firemen themselves. However the android did not seem to be able to shut the flame off if needed to go near a person so it was decided that the prototype would be destroyed before it became a liability simply to the lab.

"Dad", Frankie called as she and her mother walked into the lab. The first room had been transferred into office space for Finny. The main part of the house was the actual laboratory. However, the room above the offices had been made for Beth to work on her latest novel or her art work that she did when her muse had taken a vacation. Either place Frankie had loved to be in. Watching her mother paint or come up with the wonderful ideas for her books was fascinating. Watching her step-father even more so since Frankie had a scientific bent more then artistic.

"In here, Frankie," came a voice from the large open space that had once been two floors but now was the 'let's try it' part of the lab. Finny Holden was standing on a platform with his partner Nicholas Jordon (whom her younger half-brother was named after) and the Human Torch. They were looking at it contemplatively, trying to figure out the right way to dispose of the android before they restarted doing research.

"Mom said you wanted me to do something?"

"Ah, yes. We need some help moving the drums of chemicals to another part of the room so they won't be close enough to the Torch when we destroy it. They are highly flammable, so you'll need to be careful." Finny had taught his step-daughter lab safety rules for years, so he knew she would have been careful regardless if he had said or not. Frankie knew the proper way of transporting or using chemicals.

"Alright," Frankie responded going over to where three drums of the special flame inducing chemical was stored. It was an extremely large cabinet, on rollers to be rolled around to wherever they were needed. She was going to take it over to the far side of the laboratory, where a separate room was that would protect it from any flying metal depending on what Finny decided to do with the android. She could already hear her mother arguing with him about destroying the android indoors being a good idea (she would prefer all explosions to be outdoors, thank you very much) when she reached the cabinet.

She rolled the cabinet out of where it was and into the larger open area so she could turn it around so it would be easier to push towards the separated area. However just as she was turning, some of the wooden floor gave out beneath her, causing her to fall. Unfortunately this caused the cabinet to become unbalanced and it came crashing down on her, with many of the containers breaking.

She felt smothered as the chemicals poured over her, but she couldn't move due to the heavy cabinet on top of her, and the broken floor beneath her. She could feel it go into her eyes, her mouth and as she struggled to get out from underneath the chemicals, she could feel it burning into her skin. Distantly she could hear her mother screaming and the vibrations of Finny and Nick's footfalls as they rushed over to assist her.

However, before they could reach her, one of the canisters shifted and the cabinet slid against another metal object, causing a spark. Flames engulfed her and the pile on top of her.

She didn't feel the flames. Her body was numb now and she was loosing consciousness, and she cried as she realized this was probably her last mistake.

* * *

When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a hospital bed. It appeared to be a private room, painted a soft shade of blue. She blinked and sat up, noticing that she…was perfectly fine. There were no scars, she saw clearly and she could breathe ok. So either she had just had a pretty horrible nightmare or something odd had happened.

Her skin didn't even look like it had sunburn, let alone chemical burns.

She would have thought more on this, except her mother choose that time to come into her room and start hugging her and saying how scared she was and all that. She held on tight to her mother.

"What happened?" she asked. Her mother released her slightly to look at her.

"You were involved in a fire. Luckily your father was able to get to you in time before any damage was done. The chemicals that had spilled on you seemed to keep the fire from actually burning your skin before he got here with the hose." Her mother wasn't telling her everything, she could tell by the way her mother looked at her. But she wasn't lying either because Beth Holden was a very bad liar. So she simply nodded and let her mother fuss around her for awhile.

She had a hard time sleeping that night. Every time she closed her eyes she would see that fire and wake up crying. The nurse on duty seemed understanding, but there wasn't much she could do and Frankie really didn't want to continue waking the other patients so she just decided not to sleep

She walked around the floor a bit after she was given a pair of scrubs to replace the hospital gown, until the nurse gave her a beeper and some change and let her go downstairs to the main lobby and cafeteria. They were selling hot chocolate and coffee and small snack like items for the families who were waiting for word about their loved ones and for the night staff.

She bought herself a hot cocoa and went to sit down when she spotted a younger boy drinking his own cup of cocoa. A few seats down, a girl who looked like her early twenties lay sleeping. Pausing she turned and walked towards the boy and sat next to him.

"Hi" she said after a minute.

"Hi."

"I'm Frankie." He looked at her confused.

"But you're a girl. Isn't Frankie a boy's name?"

"Sure, but not everything has to be by the book, in my opinion. Besides my full name is Frances which is just horrible if you ask me." That finally got a smile from the boy. "What's your name?" 

"Jonathan, but most people call me Johnny."

"Well, Johnny, what brings you here?" She got herself as comfortable as she could on the hard chairs, turning to pay attention to the boy. Even though she could tell he wasn't as old as she was, she still found him cute. It was his blue-grey eyes that had caught her attention, the sorrow in them. It made her forget for awhile the sight and feel of the fire.

"My mom is sick. You?"

"I….Well, I was in an accident and they wanted to watch me for awhile."

"They let you walk around the hospital?" he asked.

"Well, it's more like they saw that as a better option then trying to make me sleep." She didn't want to admit out loud that she was still seeing the flames and feeling like she was suffocating every time she actually did fall asleep. It was slightly embarrassing.

After all, who was afraid of fire?

"Nightmares?"

"Pretty much."

"Of What?" She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Perhaps talking about it will be helpful. And it's not like I'm going anywhere. Sue may be able to sleep on these chairs but I certainly can't."

"Yeah, she does seem to be…well comfortable."

"It's unnatural."

"Yes. Totally agree there." She was about to say more when the nurse who was in charge of her floor came to find her (apparently her beeper didn't work because she surely didn't hear it) and take her back up to her room. She said a quick goodbye to her new friend and followed the nurse.

She continued to have the nightmares, but as time went on and as long as she didn't go near large fires she slowly had less and less. Her parents were concerned about it, noticing that she never went to bon-fires and never liked fire-works anymore. She couldn't watch a movie where things burned down.

But she learned to live with this new fear, not letting it get in the way of her dreams. She joined the air force (though they did note on their records her pyrophobia so she was kept off any duty where that had any strong likelihood) and then the science and defense team in New York under General Hagar. By the time she even met the Fantastic Four she had managed to make it so she could handle small amounts of fire, and not flinch noticeable when she couldn't handle it greatly.

But she still never talked to anyone about her experiences that day in her step-father's lab.


End file.
